How to format your references using the BioMetals citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BioMetals. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Linden J (2006) Cell biology. Purinergic chemotaxis. Science 314:1689–1690

A journal article with 2 authors

McGhee K, Phillips N (2015) Nature Index 2015 China. Nature 528:S165

A journal article with 3 authors

Gao Y, Chen G, Chan RHM (2014) Naming game on networks: let everyone be both speaker and hearer. Sci Rep 4:6149

A journal article with 5 or more authors

De Leo GA, Rizzi L, Caizzi A, Gatto M (2001) Carbon emissions. The economic benefits of the Kyoto Protocol. Nature 413:478–479

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

Segura J, Hawkins CF (2005) CMOS Electronics. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Bjorner A, Cohen F, Concini CD, et al (eds) (2012) Configuration Spaces: Geometry, Combinatorics and Topology. Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa

A chapter in an edited book

Miquel-Martí V, Sordé-Martí T (2008) A New Understanding of Globalization: The Case of the Romà. In: Zajda J, Biraimah K, Gaudelli W (eds) Education and Social Inequality in the Global Culture. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 57–70

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for BioMetals.

Blog post

Andrews R (2015) Oslo To Combat Climate Change By Going Traffic-Free By 2019. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/oslo-combat-climate-change-going-traffic-free-2019/. Accessed 30 Oct 2018

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office (2004) Federal-Aid Highways: Trends, Effect on State Spending, and Options for Future Program Design. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Le Blanc JD (2017) Helping African American Middle School Students Transition to High School with the New Normal Project: A Grant Proposal. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Greenhouse L (2006) Abortion Opponents Win Dispute. New York Times A14

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Linden 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Linden 2006; McGhee and Phillips 2015).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (McGhee and Phillips 2015)
Three or more authors: (De Leo et al. 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	BioMetals
Abbreviation	Biometals
ISSN (print)	0966-0844
ISSN (online)	1572-8773
Scope	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology Biomaterials Metals and Alloys